New Aero system, help? :D

[ybooord]

Hello fellow farmers, first time posting. Really enjoy the community so far from what I seen. :)

I'd like to introduce myself by stating that I haven't grown in over 25 years, and even then, never grew seriously or well enough to produce "top shelf" bud as they would call it today. I recently wanted to try growing again with my son (he's 21) for some fun, and to supply my brother, my son, and I with some high quality meds. We're all California legal patients, but none of us have much experience with growing cannabis.

So about a month ago, I invested in an aeroponic system (which I've only ever had experience in soil obviously) and began to make a pretty decent setup in an extra room of ours for our grow. The room is carbon filter'ed in and out by two 8 inch fans (one pulling, one pushing), completely sealed into the lights (room is completely sealed as well), RO watering system, two 1000w hps lights, 73-76 degrees Fahrenheit (easily adjustable in the matter of minutes), 40% RH, water faucets and drains all around the room, a decent selection of nutes recommended by some friends I met at a near by hydro shop, and another near by room dedicated for the mother/clone/cure room (with t5 ready).

So soon, we plan to have our own mothers, supplying our aero system with all freshly home-cut clones off our own plants. And a decent rotation keeping us all greatly in stock. :sun

But as we got the room fully ready, we had to improvise. Not wanting to waste time by waiting for our own mothers, we decided to just get our system full of clones from a few different sources, with a few different strains (all indicas). A friend of my son's who happens to work at a local dispensary, got us 23 Bubba Kush clone's. When my son brought them home... they were already in horrible shape. Yellow, wilting, and leaves curling up, super long roots that already looked to be damaged (they were in foam sponge in red Dixie cups, roots were growing out the sponge (and looked to have been burned by the t5).

We planted them anyway, in attempt to bring the back to a somewhat healthier state. But as I said before, we're not very experienced... especially in hydro nutrients. However we did manage to green them up a bit, and make some of the leaves look a tad healthier and horizontal out. We have more clones on the way in a lot better shape, but would like to bring these little guys back the best we could as well.

Day 3 in our system:

A little better than when we got the clones from the dispensary, but still pretty bad looking. We've been keeping the lights on 24/7 (lifted all the way up at about 32" letting them get use to the environment I guess? lol), with water cycle one on, five off like I mentioned before, and running:
-Supernatural Ultrathrive
-Clear rez
-Super B+
The other clones that we have coming tomorrow are from a friend of mine, and are supposedly gorgeous little babies in excellent shape, which hopefully burst through our coco liners and take off. But for now, any help, or suggestions to help getting these current little guys looking any better would be greatly appreciated, as well as any tips for the future. Thanks. Merry Christmas & happy holidays :bong2:

 

[sk2004]

Have a similar system based of gh aeroflo2 chambers. When first transplanting, usually ill pull the drain tubes up to set the water levels to the base of the roots and adjust the laser line so the spray hits the side of the chamber wall at water level causing a lot of bubbles. The higher water level seems to offer a little better transition from the bubble cloner or root plug, then gradually drop the levels as the roots grow. Also, I skip the coco liner n just use the rocks in the net pots.

With these systems, res temperature can be an issue. And don't veg too long, otherwise depending on stretch, otherwise will run out of space. Dank_ runs these, you may want to look up some of his posts.

Hope this helps.

 

[ybooord]

Just a quick little update, these pictures were taken last night:

Final strain list: bubba kush, pre 98 bubba, bubblelicious, sugar kush, g13xlavendar

The Bubba's are looking a lot better, and are already growing rapidly. Filled the other holes in our system with some various other strains. I'll be posting pictures weekly or so, feel free to throw any tips are way! Will be much appreciated.

 

[greenbastards]

I ran an aero system a long time back. My suggestion for hydro nutes would be to stick with the Supernatural Aqua line. They run really clean in the aeroponic system. It won't clog anything up. I noticed your using the Ultimate thrive, but you shud really be using Gro aqua with it. Gro aqua is your base, then add on the Super B and the Ultimate thrive. Gro aqua really buffers the pH so i never had to adjust it. It starts on the lower end (5.3-5.5), but the plants seem to love it. I usually ran it at quite low ppm's. During weeks 1-3 i would wouldn't go over 250-300ppms.

Always start on the lower end with supernatural, its potent stuff. Then when your ready to head into flower switch them over to bloom aqua.

i hope this helps!

 

[dank_]

I see RED STEMS on those plants. Looks like root rott. I imagine its from the shitty condition the clones were in before you got them.

Root rot is a horrible horrible problem. ESPECIALLY in aero.

 

[ybooord]

Thanks for the feedback guys! And yeah, I believe some did have some root rot when we received them, but ran a little extra clear res in the mix and tried to keep cold res temps... seemed to do the trick. Next go around we'll have a water cooler so it will help a ton.

Here's an update as of Feburary 2nd, and these pictures were taken last night on the 1st. They're only 2½ weeks into flower, and since the plants took to our system and burst through the coco liners, we haven't really had any problems other than we veg'd for WAYYY too long (3 weeks :( beginners mistake I guess :thinking lol). I wanted to take clones off of this batch before we went into flower, but we didn't have the space until later than expected. My son warned me about vegging this long! But at least now we have another fresh, healthy batch of clones on deck if these get too big for our room (which we hope doesn't happen :pimp: ).

bubbleicious:

lavender x g13:

pre 98 bubba:

(note: the only verification I have of said strains is the clone suppliers)

Will update again when closer to harvest in a few weeks.